22:50 -0500
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>Justin:
>However, I was talking to Charles,w ho is a fan
>of state repression.
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>Charles: Justin this is slander. You are a liar.
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Charles, have you not said you think that counterrevolutionary speech, including speech critical of socialism or supportive of capitalism ought to be suppressed?
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CB: No , that is not precisely what I said, but assuming arguendo, for the moment... lets compare even these two statements
you think that counterrevolutionary speech, including speech critical of socialism or supportive of capitalism ought to be suppressed?
Charles,w ho is a fan
>of state repression.
CB: They are quite far from identical. I would even say the second is a demogogic and slanderous distortion of the first, and the first itself is a distortion. For example, I my attitude might be not at all fanatic about state repression, and definitely not in general, but unenthusiastically see it as necessary to prevent bourgeois repression. The expropriators might be expropriated ,but the repressors must be repressed is the revolution is to persist. I am not for state repression in general, but state repression of the repressors. And I am not even happy that we have to do that, since it merely gives the bourgeoisie, and their mouthpieces like you , a chance to distort the picture and claim that they, the victimizers , are the victims.
Closer to what I said lately was that is likely that some of the bureaucratic intelligentsia left over from the Czarist academic regime, (which would include lots of Orthodox priests probably in philosophy , by the way, given the traditional unity of philosophy and theology in European feudalist tradition; Ivory Towerists, literally ) should be removed from the offices of professors and academic power positions because many of them would be sho nuf at least anti, if not counter, revolutionaries. They shouldn't be anymore immune from removal from office than officials from other parts of the old Czarist government and institutions. This would of course be a repression of their speech in an important way because they would lose their ability to broadcast as authorities from lecturns, or publish in university and college press and media. That's some of the specifically sort of purely speech aspects; with the many specifics, some might have even taken up arms, or been foreign ag! ents , or this or that.
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As well as a racist and fascist speech, but set that aside,
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CB: Yes, definitely, in the SU or the US
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I don't agree with it, but many demoxcratic societies do this, e.g., France and Germany. Have you not said that scholars who criticize a socialist revolutionor who defend a capitalist obe ought for that reason be treated as if they had actuallyt carried out the policies they advocate, even if that means shooting them?
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CB: No, as a matter of fact , I have not said this. This is slander. It is a distorted version from your imagination. As you say, chill out your dilluding imagination.
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I said, you recall, "Bang! Gives a whole new meaning to being fired." I was joking, but you said, "Revolutions are violent." You weren't.
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CB: So when Marx said that violence is the midwife of every society pregnant with the new, was he expressing fanaticism for state repression and violence ?
Your lack of precision is astonishing for one who claims to be a philosopher with special contributions and abilities in precision and clarity for analyzing Marxism , and "correcting" Marx's errors ( that latter is really becoming more and more of a joke)
Lets compare the two statements again.
I said, you recall, "Bang! Gives a whole new meaning to being fired." I was joking, but you said, "Revolutions are violent." You weren't.
and
Have you not said that scholars who criticize a socialist revolutionor who defend a capitalist obe ought for that reason be treated as if they had actuallyt carried out the policies they advocate, even if that means shooting them?
Are you so brain fogged that you think "Revolutions are violent" is identical with "scholars who criticize a socialist revolutionor who defend a capitalist obe ought for that reason be treated as if they had actuallyt carried out the policies they advocate, even if that means shooting them? "
We need Thomas Seay to teach about "nuances" and even "marked differences"
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Haven';t you said that Khrushchev--granted he was a great improvement on Stalin--was about as civil libertarian as you care to be, and K, after all, had an ideological police that censored the press and the arts?
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CB: No, I didn't say that . Nor did I say anything that means the same thing, or could reasonably be paraphrased as what you say.
The main thing I said about Khrushchev in this regard is that his criticism/self-criticism of the CPSU and Stalin demonstrated more honesty and openness about crimes in the CPSU than anything the Democratic or Republican Parties had ever come close to admitting or cleaning house on with respect to it numerous historical crimes, especially against Indians and Africans, women, but Viet Namese and Koreans, etc, too; and that this is an example of greater democracy and openness in the CPSU than in the actually existing liberal democratic parties and countries.
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What's state repressuion if not all that?
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CB: Your warped and very much misrepresenting accounts of what I said really raise questions in my mind. I think you and the Analytical "Marxists" hack up Marx in a similar fashion.
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I am an kneejerk ACLU First Amendment fundamentalist,
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CB; You are right. You are unthinking and dogmatic in your liberal democratic approach to freedom of thought and speech. Ironically, you do a disservice to the cause of freedom of thought and speech by not thinking enough about it , but reacting in an unthinking or shallow thinking and kneejerk manner.
There is responsibility of thought that accompanies freedom of thought. This is another principle that makes the Marxist conception of freedom , including of thought and speech , superior to your frozen, kneejerk liberal democratic conception. There are a lot of new and improved ideas on freedom of thought and speech since the 18th Century. Why don't you try and catch up ?
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Congress shall make NO LAW limited freedom of the speech or of the press.
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CB: The generation who established this phrase in the Constitution interpreted it to mean that Congress or a state legislature ( of course to which at that time the First Amendment didn't apply) could make a law prohibiting speech advocating Toryism or a monarchist counterrevolution. The liberal democrats of 1787 had a more advanced and internally consistent concept of freedom of speech than you do today. That "Freedomloving" had to be interpreted as anti-monarchist, a materialist interpretation, prevailed in a real world revolution. To hold otherwise would be to undermine certainty in the correctness of the revolution itself. Specifically, with respect to freedom of speech ,it would betray uncertainty in the importance of freedom of speech, since monarchism would not provide for freedom of speech.
Analogously , a socialist revolution can ban advocacy of return to capitalism. It is critical for socialist revolutionaries to be certain about socialist revolution, i.e. the repression of capitalism, because of the difficulty of the task. Effective practice of a difficult task requires the most extreme relative diminution of skepticism about the main aim of the practice. ^^^^^^
Such laws, which you advocate, are state repression.
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CB: Liberal democracy, and all the laws under it are state repression. This is a hamhanded use of "state repression" on your part. There is no such thing as a law that is not part of state repression. Law is part of the state apparatus, and the state is in its essence an instrument of repression.
The other thing in all of this is that your position also implies that you think that Marx was "a fan of state repression", because the position I am taking is identical to Marx's position on these questions in his concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There is no liberal democratic "Marxist" argument that has refuted Lenin's argument in _The State and Revolution_ on Marx's position on these issues
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You say you don't advocate a Stalinist terror, and I accept that. But you do advocate at least Khrushchevite repression. No lie! So: in this country, under our Firast Amendment doctrine, truth is a defense to a charge of slander, and what I said was true. Unless you take back the above . . . .
jks
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CB; I have clearly demonstrated that when you said " Charles is a fan of state repression" you spoke a falsehood, so you are slandering me there.
The First Amendment does not enter in here because I am not the state or "Congress" ( that's Con Law I ).
I am not a fan of liberal democratic state repression , which you favor. By your "logical" approach, that makes you a fan of state repression.